Alice Cooper

We've made a point of mentioning in the past that one of the best things about our ongoing Studio Albums collections is that their convenience. Seriously, how great is it to be able to own an extensive streak of an artist's discography in a single package? Of course, when it comes to an Alice Cooper set that includes every studio album that the man formerly known as Vincent Furnier released on Warner Brothers between 1969 and 1983, we're talking about a seriously big package…and as it seems somehow inappropriate to throw in a “that's what she said” in the middle of this piece, we're going to move on and provide you with a list of the albums that are contained within the set.

There’s a strange sort of rock ‘n’ roll serendipity about the fact that we remember Dee Dee Ramone, co-writer of the semi-classic Ramones track “Eat That Rat,” who died on this date in 2002, on the same day that we remember Alice Cooper’s late boa constrictor, who died on this date in 1977 after being bitten by a rat he was trying to eat.

Today marks the 67th birthday of a guitarist, keyboard player, and songwriter who added as nearly as much to the early Alice Cooper sound as Vincent Furnier himself: Michael Bruce.

Born in 1948, Michael Owen Bruce had a military man for a dad, but his mother was a piano player, so it’s not hard to figure out what led Bruce to start tinkling the ivories himself, but it was – as with so many other young men in the ‘60s – the Beatles and the Stones that inspired him to pursue music to the point of becoming part of a band. In 1966, after doing time in such groups as The Trolls, The Wildflowers, and Our Gang, Bruce joined up with an outfit called The Spiders, the members of which may be familiar to you: Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, and the aforementioned Mr. Furnier. By 1968, The Spiders were known as Alice Cooper, and…well, you know where the story goes from there.

Here’s what I remember about 1980: pretty sure Reagan was elected President...not sure who shot JR...definitely sure that the Pac-Man arcade game made its debut...not sure whether paste was technically considered a food group. Hey, let’s boogie!

Earlier this week, an absurd number of people tuned in to watch an even more absurd TV movie called Sharknado 2: The Second One, and if you were paying close attention, then you might’ve heard a little ditty called “(The Ballad of) Sharknado.” The song was initially introduced in the first film, but in order to help keep the budget down, they decided to utilize it again in the sequel, which has caused somewhat of a resurgence in people’s appreciation of the track, and we’re anticipating that it’ll get a further boost when SyFy airs an encore of Sharknado 2. on Saturday evening.

In anticipation of the inevitable backlash, we decided we’d cater to those of you who are now or eventually will grow tired of hearing “(The Ballad of) Sharknado” by providing you with a playlist of 30 other ballads, all taken from our digital catalog. It’s a ridiculously diverse group of folks – you get Alice Cooper, George Benson, Big Star, Freddie and the Dreamers, Bad Company, Jerry Jeff Walker, Toy Matinee, and Prince, to name just a few of the names included therein – but we’ll guarantee you this much: it’s not as ridiculous as Sharknado 2.

During the ‘80s, more than a few rock ‘n’ roll types fell victim to a desire to freshen up their sound by giving it a bit of new-wave flair. Why do we say “fell victim”? Because although it proved a successful experiment for some artists, there were far more for whom it very much did not. As you might’ve guessed by the headline, we bring this up because it was 34 years ago today that Alice Cooper released his new-wavy effort, Flush the Fashion, but on which side of the fence does the album fall? Well, given that it’s a matter which continues to be contested more than three decades after its initial arrival, it’s not likely to be decided here, but we thought we’d talk (talk) about it a bit, anyway.

You probably caught the bonus parenthetical “talk” in the previous sentence, but if you’re not familiar with Flush the Fashion, then you wouldn’t get the intent of the duplication: it’s a reference to Cooper’s cover of The Music Machine’s “Talk Talk,” which leads off the album. It’s a nice nod to his garage-rock roots, but it failed to earn any significant airplay when it was released as the album’s second single, which is why most casual Cooper fans know the record mostly for its first and most successful single, “Clones (We’re All).” It wasn’t a huge hit, only hitting #40 on the pop charts, but it was the first top-40 hit Cooper had managed in two years, so it at least served to put him back in the public eye to some extent. (As it happens, it was a cover as well, having been written by David Carron, late of Arlo Guthrie’s band, Shenandoah.)

Who’s 66 today but still says he’s 18? Why, Alice Cooper, of course! And, yes, we did use some approximation of that joke last year, but we decided to use it again because we – wait for it – Love It to Death. (Don’t worry: that joke we’re retiring.)

Los Angelenos were in for a real treat when Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper took to the stage at the Sunset Strip's Whisky A Go Go on this day in 1969. It was the first of a 4-night run for Led Zeppelin who were on their first North American tour. Tune into our playlist to hear a handful of soon-to-be hits from both bands.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, former Warner Bros. Records executive and industry insider Stan Cornyn ruminates on the past, present, and future of the music business.

1971-1973

Alice Becomes a Warner Brother

In 1971, Alice Cooper’s label (Frank Zappa’s Straight Records) is being sold to its distributor-in-chief, Warner Bros. Records. And by the time we get to the bottom of this page, that sale will be a done deal.

Already in 1971, Alice Cooper and his gang were setting up their show-to-pop for 1972. Their cache of stage-mania included super-lighting ($5000 worth) to cover a specially-built stage with 80-foot wide butterfly wings that will encircle and unfold around the band.

The wings are being covered with phosphorus so that lasers projected onto them will draw patterns. This whole super-stage – sectional, collapsible, travel-able – has been designed at the University of Toronto. Props are being made of aluminum tubing, easily lifted, so three people can set the whole stage up in three hours.

Most central to it all is an “electric chair,” stage center, on which sits a life-size figure of Alice, to pop-audience-eyes on cue.